This is only the second Superman story I have ever read, and
I enjoyed it immensely. I’ve not really
heard from others—Brits, Americans, or otherwise—as to whether it captured the
Superman element, but from the perspective of an American transplant/honorary
Welsh person, I thought its attempt to capture Britishness was quite
successful. Certainly it is “one” kind
of British humor, no doubt conveyed by the fact that its author, Kim “Howard”
Johnson either solicited or accepted scripting help from John Cleese.
Personally, I think Superman needs a dose of humor; he’s
just so gosh-darned earnest (at least that is the impression I get). Superheroes tend to need to be morose or
earnest, otherwise it’s hard to take their antics seriously. And it’s the gosh-darn earnestness that
Johnson and Cleese tease into hilarity in True
Brit, satirizing Anglo-American expectations as well as repeating British
stereotypes that will draw a chuckle.
The idea behind True
Brit is that instead of being dropped off with a childless couple in the
cornfields of Kansas, baby Kal-el is adopted in Weston-super-Mare! Certainly one has to question what kind of
parallel timeline this is happening in because, as was once delivered a very
valid criticism of my Batman fan fic,
True Brit’s Britain is exceedingly
old-fashioned for a world, based on other evidence, which is taking place some
time in the late twentieth century. I’m
not certain what prompted this chronological limbo—though it’s something that
hits Batman quite frequently, which I
often don’t find myself minding, as with the success of the retro noir of BtAS—unless it’s not to create a
political imbroglio by firmly setting this during some real Conservative or
Labour government control. This is pure
speculation.
The thing is, True
Brit made me laugh out loud on several occasions. It is fascinating what elements of the
Superman myth Johnson and Cleese felt bound to incorporate and which ones they
felt they could dispense with or alter. I’ll
try not to spoil all of that, however, and focus on the funny bits in an
attempt to recommend the book to add to your own merriment. “Think of the wonders our Kal-el will
experience in England!” Jor-El says to his wife. These are suggested, ironically, as farming,
dentistry, rain, and fishmongers fighting.
When Superman’s adopted father, Mr Clark, tells Mrs Clark what they must
do with the baby found in the wreckage, he says, “Yes, we have been charged by
an elder of the planet Krypton to be his caretakers. Without pay.”
Mrs Clark’s response if one that shapes the narrative and depicts
Britons, truthfully or satirically, as all sharing an all-consuming
obsession: “What will the neighbours
think?”
Colin Clark is full of the kind of fraightfully jolly
schoolboyishness that seems to be the only British equivalent for Clark Kent’s
farm-boy sincerity; to his parents’ dismay, he warms up their cold tea with his
heat ray vision. This explains the need
for his glasses (unnecessary for perfect vision, they shield his heat ray from
going accidentally off during the vagaries of adolescence). The narrator tells us that as Colin grows up,
there must be “No super x ray vision. No
super-dancing. No super-charted
accountancy. No super radioactive
spiders.” When Colin slips up and
decides to singlehandedly run the Weston-super-Mare farm, he uproots tree
stumps and sings gaily, “Look at me! I’m
a farmer!! Farming’s easy!!”
When Colin is sent away to school, he meets Louisa
Layne-Ferret, cousin of the American Lois Lane who shows up later. Worrying about whether he should use his
powers to win a game of cricket, Colin finally decides, “What would the neighbours
think? They would think it as a very
respectable, British thing to do.”
Unfortunately, in his nervousness, Colin accidentally disembowels a
fellow player who gives the satirically British understated response: “Crikey!
That smarts!” “Mum and Dad were
right!” the hapless Colin thinks. “I’m
ostracised by my peers! I’m a social
pariah! Could my week get any worse?” When Dirk McQuickly and Ron Nasty of the
Rutles are in perilous danger, Colin defies his parents disapprobation to save
them. “What an absolutely super man!” a
news commentator guffaws. “Well done,
Superman! Jolly good!” His parents are pleased that his costume at
least shows that he’s wearing clean underwear.
Perhaps the politics haven’t
been entirely left out, given that Colin falls into a den of sleazy
inequity by laboring as a journalist for Britain’s corrupt tabloid newspaper
kingdom. “Even if I have
to—compromise—to be a good tabloid journalist, I can still be helpful, pleasant
and nice when I’m Superman!” Politics is
also evident when the Queen gives Superman three seemingly impossible tasks to
perform. The first is to make the trains
of Britain run on time. This is a
hilariously on-target gag, and Superman’s solution—to make the train drivers
aware of such a thing as timetables—is a howl.
Reducing the waiting time for hip operations, the second task, is a sure
criticism of the NHS, even if the solution—to ask doctors to play less golf and
do more operations—places the blame with individual sloth and greed. It’s the final “impossible task” which I
think is a bit of an unfair slam—raising the quality of programming on the
BBC. What?!
Superman’s next project is to pay off the national debt, and
it seems an amusing and not altogether satisfying blow that Superman is brought
to his knees by bankruptcy (not to mention kryptonite and the Bat-Man!). True Brit is very well-drawn by John
Byrne and Mark Farmer with Alex Bleyaert.
I feel less affection for the final denouement of True Brit than I did for the very funny first two-thirds, but I do
recommend this book.
